Peterson: In Between The Man and The Message

oh god a earth and alter a dun dun dun I'm not good at memorizing hymns I just like to hear him and sing him actually yeah we were here one summer and we had a visiting Kingfisher he every morning and every evening and on that tree sit there and wait for fish so I started looking at that Kingfisher and then I started counting and I counted 37 dives before he got the first fish and I know wow he's the king Fisher you know all these pasture things and people go to for leadership training what do you have to do to get a convocation forget it uh just be yourself and not anybody else I mean just you so that Kingfisher became kind of a icon for me is what pastors do it doesn't work well how many times have you tried 37 s in my head when I was oh I guess 10 11 years old every Saturday I would take my bike and go to the foothills and spend the day with some food frying pan and two eggs and some bacon but I did that for years I was kind of a loner the kids in the neighborhood called me a Jesus so I was blending it out way from them for a few hours I always wanted a beard but I became a pastor just during the days of that the hippies and their everybody was really spooky about that the drugs and the sex and then the beards so I knew I couldn't couldn't wear a beard because I was a new congregation nobody knew me I was gonna be a monk I mean in my head I was in my senior year in college my girlfriend said she wanted to go to this in her varsity meeting and this young man was leading the singing so I saw her I spotted her in the second second row I just kept looking at I've been thinking I really like his looks I liked his smile I like the twinkle of his eyes when he smiled and he smiled a lot and I thought I'm gonna have to start going back to InterVarsity I said Bob I met a really nice girl he said what's her name I said Janice Janice who oh I didn't get her last name you Christians you are so stupid how do you even manage to propagate went to the cashier and said I want a dead dollars with the dimes that was a dime per phone call in those days and I pushed me into a phone booth so you start calling well there were 67 stubs in Baltimore he started at the top of the list and and down kept going in my dance ain't this Vincent but so dense that stubs it was pretty far down and on the sixth call the man said well he see she's next door right now and I ask who's calling suddenly I was a monk no more our wedding do you remember this shredder fries Janice Enslow stubs groom Eugene Roland Peterson and I was feeling silly with all this attention yeah I was nervous so were your parents remember yeah there we are the happy couple it looks too young to be getting married in a word what's the most important thing about pastoring well relationship if you really treat your congregation personally relationally you don't think of them as problems so humility is a big part of this but it isn't humility just as a word it's a way of living your life in relationship to others without competing and and that's why a congregation is so important this is one place which is kind of set up to do that many of us grow up ambitious and the minute the ambition begin to competitive then it's that's when it goes sour crown him Lord go a little flat what is it easy to get corrupted by culture oh my you bet it is instead of having an incarnation Christ you've got a consumer Christ who's gonna give you what you want it's the church without Christ there's no Christ so consumer Church is an antichrist Church I think a congregation is still just as important that ever was unfortunately pastors we live in an age when pastors really are more interested in how big it is how effective it is right in their terms ah and but this is not going to last I won't get back to something healthy and normal it's there's a lot of healthy congregations going on all over the place they just don't get the newspapers did you pray with your kids growing up oh yes what did that look like well we would pray it in at bedtime mostly and you realize I was doing this all along was every evening Eugene was out Karen let him know that it had been so many nice that he had not been home and so that kind of shook him now you can be married to the church so I think things had to change one Sunday she came up to her dad before church and she said daddy I don't want to go to church today and he put his arm around her he says Oh Karen I feel that way sometimes too my son Eric said you know my favorite person in the Bible is ah I said no is it Jeremiah and here's Jeremiah the weeping prophet and nobody likes him he's you know he's a fair and I said why Jeremiah and Eric said because he was also the son of a priest and he said that just melted me and I thought I'm gonna write a book about Jeremiah but I miss most after I was no longer a pastor is the intimacy the kind of intimacy that I was experiencing it seemed to me to be unique to Pastor a life but I didn't notice until I left and then I thought oh that's that's why I like me a bastard how long did it take you to write the message around for years about 20 years but you know I wasn't keeping track of things it was just kind of a seamless process I spent I would say good five years learning they could language my congregation and that's what came out I just I really didn't I didn't think I was doing something that extraordinary but I knew I was doing something for my congregation that was extraordinary they were they were listening to this for the first time how many books have you written thirty-five not including the message why do you not include the message because it's not my book really it's just I don't think of it as it's not my book I always felt that I was more than a pastor's wife I'm trying to write my story right now and it's slow going because I'm not getting any help from anybody close by me I think I think beauty is almost inherent in reality I think we're taking the stuff that God has created and letting it shape our lives and that becomes hard that's the beauty this quotation from isaiah 53:2 he had no form or comeliness that we should look at him and no beauty that we should desire him a whiff a biga for beauty I sniffed a Monet's his decks van Gogh's sunflowers devoutly meditated Maryland's breasts watched kingfishers lost the sims art is making visible what's invisible in the life of faith and that's the most important thing about faith between you and me and God but you can't see it but you can see when when it's not there there's no relationship or there's criticism or there's anger or something and I just think that were between is just a really powerful concept to understand the nature of overhead all this time did you like doing communion I did yeah which part did you like best I just like the whole Eucharistic symbolism keeps us in touch with the Incarnation it's not just ideas getting in into your gut the minute we try to spiritualize Jesus we become a fancy word for it as Gnostics we just again it's an idea ah just a truth but there's no flesh to it you're the flesh I'm the flesh Jesus is the flesh will be the characteristics of a saint humility number one unpretentious having no idea that they're assayed define authenticity being content to be yourself not be somebody else there's been nobody like you from the foundation in the world like grey face it you're stuck with yourself now learn about yourself that's what we're doing and the church when the Church of this best lets us be ourselves encourages us to be ourselves kiss the lepers wound taste honey touch the blind eye learn Braille keep vigil at the cradle change diapers drink tears from the chalice live Eucharist where is your new adventure taking you next I'm gonna go I've never felt more before does death concern you not really no I mean Jen and I talk about it sometimes we sit out here and talk about I don't think so yeah what are you looking forward to in the future Kevin we're gonna hold hands and walk into heaven together that's what we'd like I don't think I have any regrets I would I would know what else to do I'm just grateful I get grateful as there is the word I think I would use that I've been able to live my life feeling like Eugene not somebody else yeah what would you like your legacy or your echo on humanity to be this might sound really unrealistic but it's it's my hope I hope I could be part of changing the pastoral imagination of American masters happened on found things found in gutters found on a cross found under a stone heard in the rustling grass heard in a tongue stammering Sabich Thani found when I wasn't looking heard when I wasn't listening found beauty I treasure the way other people love her except her celebrator yeah I treasure his spirituality the depths of him I don't treasure that the boy doesn't talk much I wish she talked a little more what's been the best bits living for you uh my marriage and my children again all the rest can go to pardon I think I'd still make it yeah my marriage in my children thank you for sharing your life with us you're welcome thank you for listening affirming it you what are we doing so that's the question in life isn't it just action action

Channel: Navpress

Views: 187,603

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Keywords: eugene peterson, the message, MSG, the message bible

Id: LaMgIvbXqSk

Length: 18min 44sec (1124 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 30 2016